


Abuela's Favorite

by hideeho



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Abuela Knows, Day 3 of Eddie Week, Eddie Diaz Week 2020, Family Dynamics, M/M, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24770860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hideeho/pseuds/hideeho
Summary: She hasn’t missed the way he looks at her grandson. She hasn’t missed the way Edmundo looks at him when he thinks no one is looking.You’d think he’d know by now he couldn’t get anything past her.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 89
Kudos: 737





	Abuela's Favorite

Christopher shrieks with laughter as Edmundo’s Evan spins him around her back yard. 

Eddie sits beside her, a soft smile on his face as he looks out at them with a warm fondness. He looks so much younger like this. Happy. She finds herself reaching out to squeeze his large hand with her own. 

Isabel Diaz is a simple woman. 

She loves her God and her family. 

No family is perfect, but she has been blessed with healthy children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. She loves them all equally, she does, but if asked by Peter on her way through the gates if she had a favorite she couldn’t very well risk all of eternity by saying anything other than Edmundo. 

“He’s good with him,” Isabel says sweetly, taking a sip of her agua fresca as she watches the boys play. 

“Yeah, he really is. Chris loves him.”

“Hmm.” She has a funny feeling Christopher isn’t the only one. “You can go out and join them, you know. You don’t have to keep this old woman company.”

“You’re not old.”

“I’m a great grandmother.”

“I like keeping you company,” he argues, all smiles, stubborn and charming as ever. 

“My sweet boy,” she surrenders, patting his cheek with affection as she leans over to kiss his other cheek. 

“Daaaaaaaad,” Christopher screeches, clearly losing the tickle fight that has broken out. “Save me!” Eddie pauses to give her an apologetic look as she waves him away. Edmundo tackles Evan to the ground, wrestling in the dirt to Christopher’s delighted giggles. 

The three of them are laughing, a ball of smiles and limbs as Christopher jumps on top of them to claim victory; the two men happy to concede defeat. 

Edmundo is happy and relaxed in a way he hasn’t been since he was young. He had been such a happy baby, never one to really cry. All he wanted was to be held. She could rock him for hours and he would let her, content to curl in against her for as long as she’d allow. 

He had been the total opposite of her Ramon. She’d attribute it to his mother, but she was hardly the overly affectionate sort. She had never been very impressed with that woman, especially when Ramon moved out to Texas to be closer with her family. 

No, Eddie’s light is all his own. 

Christopher reminds her so much of Edmundo when he was young it takes her breath away sometimes. Her sweet boy who was always so happy and considerate. Who had a story for every occasion and an impossibly curious mind. Stubborn. Independent. Strong. 

Her baby boy who only wanted pre-paid phone calls for his birthday so he could call her whenever he wanted without his parents worrying about the phone bill. 

The man that started sending her money without asking once his abuelo died, even when he had a baby at home and was half a world away. 

She’s not sure when things changed exactly. When he started to close himself off and take himself seriously. Maybe it started in his teen years, trying so hard to man up like his father insisted. Maybe it was when he enlisted. Or maybe when it was when he got married so young, trying to step up and do the right thing. 

She liked Shannon well enough. She was a nice woman and she loved her grandson, she did believe that. But she didn’t make him _glow_. Not like she had with her own husband. Not like Edmundo did with the man in front of her. 

Oh, she isn’t stupid. 

She knows about these things. 

She’s hip. 

Evan is a good man. He has excellent manners and he looks at her grandson like he hung the moon and like his son was the stars themselves. He has Edmundo’s back to protect him where her prayers can’t follow. 

She had been so relieved when Edmundo said he had a friend here in California. In hindsight, she should probably have picked up on how often he talked about him. How this man could get under his skin like no one else. 

It wasn’t until Evan had called her to surprise Edmundo and the others at Christmas that it had clicked. She hasn’t missed the way he looks at her grandson. She hasn’t missed the way Edmundo looks at him when he thinks no one is looking. 

You’d think he’d know by now he couldn’t get anything past her. 

So she waited for him to tell her. 

She kept waiting. 

She is still waiting and honestly, she can’t live forever. 

She takes a picture of them on her phone where they lay on the ground. Christopher is laying against his father’s chest and Evan is using his shoulder for a pillow. They look happy. 

They look like a family. 

Enough is enough. 

“Edmundo, I need your help with something,” she calls out, catching his attention immediately. 

“What’s wrong abuela, what do you need,” he asks, handing off Christopher to Buck as he jogs over to her, brushing the grass and dirt from his jeans as he does. 

“Inside.” She leads him back to her bedroom, stopping in front of her closet and bringing out her box full of treasures and placing them on her bed. 

“Abuela, what’s going on?”

“Evan is a _nice_ boy, Edmundo.”

“I know that,” he says questioningly, looking at her like she has grown a second head. 

“So when are you going to make an honest man out of him?” Her grandson chokes on air, turning the color of her couch as he does. 

“What? I...Abuela, I... _What_?”

“Don’t what me! I see the way you look at him.”

Eddie is bouncing from one foot to the other awkwardly, looking like a little boy that needs the bathroom more than a grown man. “It’s not like that, abuela. We’re not together.”

“Well why not?”

“He doesn’t like me like that,” Eddie sighs, shoulders slumping as he looks to the floor. It’s as much of an admission as she could hope for. 

“Idiota,” she huffs, smacking his shoulder for good measure. “That man _loves_ you. Open up your eyes, Edmundo.” 

He still doesn’t look convinced. 

“Here, I want you to have this,” she states, reaching to pull a small pouch out of the box. She opens it up, letting the simple gold ring fall into her palm. “It was your abuelo’s. I want you to have it, for when you ask him.”

“We’re not even dating,” he says dumbly, looking at the ring with wide eyes. 

It was well known in the family that she had been asked for this ring before and refused. She had always intended to give it away along with her own to be passed down, but it had never felt right. Not until now. 

“Abuela, this is...Why?”

“Because,” she says firmly, placing the ring in his palm and wrapping his fingers around it. “When you’re with him you _glow_. You’re happy and silly and _yourself_. Not the person you think everyone expects you to be, but the real you.” The Edmundo she thought she had lost long ago. “He also keeps you in line. It’s good for you,” she adds, bringing him in for a hug. 

“You don’t...I mean...He’s a man,” he says, struggling over his words. She shoots him a look and he has the decency to look bashful. She _had_ managed to work that bit out for herself. “You don’t think it’s wrong,” he asks, just to make sure. 

“God made you. He doesn’t make mistakes. Who am I to question God? If that boy makes you happy then go be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

She likes to think her answer would have been the same ten years ago, but she knows his concern wasn’t coming from nowhere. The world has changed a lot, _she_ has changed a lot and while she might not have always been so understanding, she is now. 

She has seen him twist himself in knots to fit the mold he thought he belonged in. She doesn’t ever want to seem him do that to himself again. 

“Abuela, I can’t take this. We haven’t even gone on a date yet.”

“Well then, you better get a move on. I’m an old woman. I’d actually like to make it to the wedding.” 

“Abuela,” he warns, all smiles as he pulls her to him, wrapping his arms around her like he used to when he was so young. She holds him for as long as he’ll let her. 

“Go be happy, my love. You deserve it.” 

“And if I screw it up?”

“I don’t think that one is scared off so easily.”

“No,” Eddie sighs, smiling fondly. “I don’t think he is.” 

She makes it to the wedding. 

Now to get another great-grandchild.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos fuel me! Come say hi on [Tumblr!](https://agentlemuse.tumblr.com/)


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